When item decay starts

[Grignard_TN]

Does item decay not start now until you visit a region for the first time?

[UTC-10]

That seems uncertain to me.  Nominally decay is supposed to start when the game initially starts but then a region does not spawn until the character enters it. 

Now you get actions like beachcombing where some things (that can decay) like candy bars can be near pristine condition while other things like pain killers seem to be on the constant decay (drops used to be about 45% real time months ago and now have decayed [new beachcombing drops] to 11% and expected to go lower over time or fish which turns up only in ruined condition.  

[hozz1235]

My experience is that decay begins on Day 1 for all regions.  I am basing this off my custom setting of Item Decay Rate = Low and finding almost ruined things after hundreds of days.

[Cold In July]

As far as I can see from my 500 days stalkers run:

1. items outside of containers are spawn during world creation and start decay from day 1. Items outside structures decay faster.
Its may be concluded because after day 100 at stalker about all food which outside container and can be ruin are ruined or nearby.

2. items from containers spawn at the moment you interact with random condition level. This is may be noticed when you interact twice with the same container (open, quit and open again). There also 2 (or more) groups of loot: predetermined and random. For example looting some certain body few times I noticed its always gave me MRE, and sometimes soda as bonus.
Its may be concluded because I get at day 500 some beams with 20-50%+ condition which obviously impossible.

Only exception from this I know is hidden stash rocks at Forlorn Muskeg. One which contain Beams and MRE, during moment you open stash items update their initial condition, and you may be noticed they spawn and lost durability, probably to 0%, and as food in container it will instantly selfdestruct. But hidden stash rocks at Pleasant Valley always spawn with 100% condition, tho its predetermined spawn is rabbit meat.

My 5 cents.

[Veskaida]

tl;dr all items in TLD decay over time, if they are affected by decay. The older your world gets, the more this decay increments even in regions you have never visited. Those items will be decayed appropriately when you arrive.

This is also true for Beachcombing, so past a certain point e.g. all Cloth clothes from Beachcombing will be ruined, then all Leather clothes too. This is also the case if Hinterlands adds a new region: food/meds/clothes in this new region will be affected by your decay timer (it's tied directly to "days survived").

• I believe there are 2 kinds of items in TLD: items affected by Decay
• and those which either as a design or oversight are not. Some examples of the latter are some rare instances of foodstuff or similar "guaranteed" items tied to a container's loot table, which always spawn in a container (not a lot of these still exist, post-loot rework). For example, I've found 100% Venison (Raw) many days into an Interloper run. I suppose it 'is' possible that the Venison (Raw) could have 'over' 100% condition, and when it spawns it is rounded down to 100% max, but I don't believe this is the case.

Edited June 30, 2024 by Veskaida

[Leeanda]

Day 890+ something and going into the zone for the first time I got a lot of new condition food,and some clothes..even though the map had been there for a while before I went in... 

Also when I was finishing the cairns, on maps I'd visited many times before,I still found food at new condition.

Edited July 1, 2024 by Leeanda

[Mroz4k]

I have been trying to figure this out for years and still am not 100%.

There are two main opinions - one that says non opened containers spawn items in brand new condition, and another that says looting it will subject it to the "day survived" decay.

From my own experience, I believe the second. But I also believe it applies to items outside the container. I believe non-container items are first loaded when you enter the region for the first time, and based on the decay modifier, item location and days survived, their condition is calculated.

I think a lot of people underestimate how long can some food last if it rolled high condition value and was placed in convinient way. Also, some food items like crackers never decay.

Edit: I am, however, not sure if the first loaded decay calculation actually takes into suggestion the game settings or just " vanilla decay value" - aka if item, looted after 300 days that was first generated would decay the same way on any difficulty. That might be the case, too.

Edited July 1, 2024 by Mroz4k

[Veskaida]

On 6/25/2024 at 6:31 PM, Cold In July said:

1. items outside of containers are spawn during world creation and start decay from day 1. Items outside structures decay faster.
Its may be concluded because after day 100 at stalker about all food which outside container and can be ruin are ruined or nearby.

2. items from containers spawn at the moment you interact with random condition level. This is may be noticed when you interact twice with the same container (open, quit and open again). There also 2 (or more) groups of loot: predetermined and random. For example looting some certain body few times I noticed its always gave me MRE, and sometimes soda as bonus.
Its may be concluded because I get at day 500 some beams with 20-50%+ condition which obviously impossible.

This is mostly true: some items decay slower outdoors (raw/cooked meat) than indoors (canned food). I believe items inside of containers are functionally the same as indoors. Yes, food/drinks/medicine which reaches 0% Condition inside of a container will disappear, where as those out of a container (outside or indoors) will not.

Best practice is to try and loot the entire world as quickly as possible, and at least remove items which can decay from containers (and repair clothing you want to keep, before it's ruined beyond repair). Especially high-value places like the Summit of Timerwolf Mountain, I'd strongly recommend visiting them before day 250 or so, especially on Interloper.

I'd recommend checking out the Fandom Wiki's page on Decay. It gives insight not just into passive decay like this, but also how durable different types of clothing you can wear are. https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Decay

On 6/30/2024 at 3:21 AM, Leeanda said:

Day 890+ something and going into the zone for the first time I got a lot of new condition food,and some clothes

Yes, like my other post says I think ~90% of the items in-game are procedurally affected by decay, but there are some like this which are static (like that "Venison (Raw)" I mentioned). It's not universal across the Far Range regions either, for example: Tactical Gloves in Sundered Pass were ruined an Interloper on day ~440 for me.

[Mroz4k]

5 hours ago, Veskaida said:

Best practice is to try and loot the entire world as quickly as possible,

If contained items dont spoil in unopened containers, this would not be true. In fact, leaving most containers unopened and opening them at say day 400 would yield items that would otherwise decay by then. 

Problem is noone can for sure tell how the decay works.

The biggest question is - is decay applied retrospectively or not, and if so, what rules dictate it? Its very difficult to determine.

5 hours ago, Veskaida said:

I believe items inside of containers are functionally the same as indoors.

There is a difference. Some items decay less in containers, and there is a difference between indoor and outdoor containers, too. But the differences only apply to a very small amount of items. Or at least it used to. Some food items decayed the least if stored in outdoor containers, for example. But it was moot because its better to leave them out of container so if they get ruined, they dont dissapear.

Edited July 2, 2024 by Mroz4k

[Veskaida]

2 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

If contained items dont spoil in unopened containers, this would not be true.

Not sure I understand what you mean, isn't that a triple negative?

2 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

In fact, leaving most containers unopened and opening them at say day 400 would yield items that would otherwise decay by then.

I don't know enough about TLD's code to answer that definitively, but I also don't think it really matters unless there is the potential for some exploit to "access items inside a container without opening the container", which would be very interesting as an exploit and means to bypass the Decay system, but I'm unaware of any such tech. So IMO it sounds like a Schrödinger's Cat: the items inside 'could' be spoiled or 'could' be unspoiled, but the only way to know is to open the container. But without such tech it's a moot point, since you can't use items without opening the container.

But I don't think this is the case though, since I haven't seen it in testing by simply opening containers and logging the contents in brand new worlds and very old worlds and comparing the differences.

2 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

Problem is noone can for sure tell how the decay works.

The biggest question is - is decay applied retrospectively or not, and if so, what rules dictate it? Its very difficult to determine.

https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Decay has a lot of excellent information about decay. It's not that complex, but basically every item has different values for decay rate and it's total durability, then there are different values for indoor/inside container or outdoors, and then there is an RNG roll for starting condition based on item and container.

About 70% of the world's loot (and 100% of items outside of containers) are procedurally aged based on "Days Survived". There aren't that many containers with static items, and even less of them on higher difficulties, and if you play for e.g. 500 days it should be pretty apparent what items are/aren't.

• Most items have a condition range which they spawn within.
• Some items have no condition value. Other items have a condition range but no decay (Salty Crackers, Tools)
• Some items have static spawns. and may still have a condition range or decay values, but and will always be found at fixed conditions/condition ranges regardless of world age.
• Decay is linear: based on "Days Survived" in the player data
• Game Mode/Custom Settings affects decay rate
• Item Condition is Not Equivalent: if Decay is at the same rate (e.g. 1 point), two items of different types probably decay at different rates because of different condition values. (e.g. Improvised Head Wrap VS Aviator's Hat)
• Item Decay is Not Equivalent: if condition is the same value, two different items may decay at different rates because of different decay values (e.g. Moose Meat(Raw) VS Moose Meat (Cooked), e.g. Sports Socks VS Climbing Socks)
• Decay is Variable: based on game mode/settings, indoors/outdoors/worn
• TLD tracks decimals: but does not show decimals on most UI, only approximations to the nearest whole number

Yes, Decay is applied retrospectively. You can test this by aging a world and then looting, or by abstaining from visiting a region/opening container(s) till a certain date. This is easy to test as well with save file manipulation (e.g. two clones of the same save, one where you loot the whole world, the other where you play 500 days/use mod tools to accelerate forward 500 days and then loot the whole world). If this wasn't the case it would be pretty transparent, since e.g. visiting Sundered Pass (newly released zone), or e.g. abstaining from ever visting Bleak Inlet on a 500 day old Interloper world would result in vising there and looting would yield all brand new gear, but this is not the case.

Decay is independent of where you visit, or rather, it isn't possible to visit/loot areas without allowing Decay to set in (without mods).

Edited July 2, 2024 by Veskaida

[Mroz4k]

1 hour ago, Veskaida said:

Not sure I understand what you mean, isn't that a triple negative?

It might be - I sometimes write long passages, then do edits, and so I can miss such phrases. I will clarify in detail, its kinda long, so hiding it under spoiler.
 

Spoiler

You suggested that it is best to "loot entire world as quickly as possible" (and, I assume, you also meant to imply that you would then store the items according to how to decrease the decay on them as best as possible). This would make perfect sense, assuming that decay happens on all items, regardless. 

There are two prevalent opinions about decay:
Opinion A: Only the items that are NOT in containers are generated when world starts, and start decaying. This means, that if you wait 400 days, and then open an indoor locker which has a Ski jacket inside, that jacket would be brand-newly spawned, (for example, it would roll 85% condition, despite the fact that its day 400. It would also have the 85% condition if looted on day 1.)

Opinion B: All items are subjected to decay from start of the game. Items outside start decaying normaly from the moment they are generated, and items within containers will have their starting condition adjusted by the overal decay rate of the world based on the "days survived". To use the same example, if this is how decay works, then opening the indoor locker at day 400 would generate ski jacket with 85% condition minus the natural decay: Coeficient for Ski jacket is 0.067% condition drop per day (on Stalker as baseline). To calculate it:
85 - (0.067 x 400) x c = 85 - 26,8 x c (where c is difficulty coeficient)
Stalker (c = 1) = 58,2 % condition when looted
Interloper (c = 2) = 31,4% condition when looted
Pilgrim (c = 0,25) = 78,3 % condition when looted
Voyageur (c = 0,8) = 63,56 % condition when looted

So, if we assume that Opinion A is how decay actually works, then the ski jacket would be looted at condition 85% regardless of difficulty. If we assume Opinion B is how decay actually works, then the Ski jacket actual condition when looted at day 400 depending on difficulty according to the math I wrote down.

To summ it up: 
If Opinion A is correct - best thing is to loot whole world as soon as possible, without touching containers to "preserve them" and loot them later on when in need of such items.
If Opinion B is correct - best thing is to loot whole world as soon as possible, especially items inside the containers to prevent them from disappearing.

1 hour ago, Veskaida said:

https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Decay has a lot of excellent information about decay. It's not that complex, but basically every item has different values for decay rate and it's total durability, then there are different values for indoor/inside container or outdoors, and then there is an RNG roll for starting condition based on item and container.

Yup. Even though I mostly remember it by now, I still use it for reference sometimes, at least since 2017 . Just want to clarify - the values there are only for indoor vs outdoor, not relating to containers at all. But, there is (or at least there USED to be) a difference between indoor, indoor in container, outdoor, and outdoor in container in the amount of decay that happens for various items. For example, MRE food is best stored outdoors, but storing it outdoors in a container decreased the decay even more. Not sure if that is still the case or if it was removed - either way, it would not be a good idea anyways because once it was ruined within a container, it would dissapear, but outside the container it would stay.

Just to point it out again - careful, outdoor containers are still considered "OUTSIDE" in terms of decay.

1 hour ago, Veskaida said:

• Item Condition is Not Equivalent: if Decay is at the same rate (e.g. 1 point), two items of different types probably decay at different rates because of different condition values. (e.g. Improvised Head Wrap VS Aviator's Hat)
• Item Decay is Not Equivalent: if condition is the same value, two different items may decay at different rates because of different decay values (e.g. Moose Meat(Raw) VS Moose Meat (Cooked), e.g. Sports Socks VS Climbing Socks)

A lot of extensive testing was done on this, and items will decay the same, based on the item. Aka two Simple Parkas will decay at same rate, but different rate than Ski jackets, if stored indoors. Problem here being is that "starting condition" might be as low as 18%, or as high as 99%, depending on the game settings and luck when generated. You can reference the decay coeficient on the Decay website you linked.

1 hour ago, Veskaida said:

Yes, Decay is applied retrospectively. You can test this by aging a world and then looting, or by abstaining from visiting a region/opening container(s) till a certain date.
...

• Decay is linear: based on "Days Survived" in the player data

I know this is what people say all the time, but I have also seen evidence that goes outside of these conditions. But, that also can be because the decay behaviour has changed a lot over the past 7 years. I am currently running a small test that will confirm it in a single-statistic area. To confirm this, one would need to know the % condition of an item in a container before it was looted. I made a new Pilgrim, found a 42% condition windbreaker in Carter dam locker, right now I am aging that day to at least 14 days, which would result condition to drop for at least 1% on that windbreaker that is in a currently "untouched" container, because I reloaded it. Of course I first reloaded 2 more times to ensure condition was always 42%. Not enough to be statistically perfect, but a chance that it would be randomly 42% on two attempts is relatively small. Enough for this small test.

Will post to confirm condition change if it happens or not.

[Cattleman]

47 minutes ago, Mroz4k said:

It might be - I sometimes write long passages, then do edits, and so I can miss such phrases. I will clarify in detail, its kinda long, so hiding it under spoiler.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

You suggested that it is best to "loot entire world as quickly as possible" (and, I assume, you also meant to imply that you would then store the items according to how to decrease the decay on them as best as possible). This would make perfect sense, assuming that decay happens on all items, regardless. 

There are two prevalent opinions about decay:
Opinion A: Only the items that are NOT in containers are generated when world starts, and start decaying. This means, that if you wait 400 days, and then open an indoor locker which has a Ski jacket inside, that jacket would be brand-newly spawned, (for example, it would roll 85% condition, despite the fact that its day 400. It would also have the 85% condition if looted on day 1.)

Opinion B: All items are subjected to decay from start of the game. Items outside start decaying normaly from the moment they are generated, and items within containers will have their starting condition adjusted by the overal decay rate of the world based on the "days survived". To use the same example, if this is how decay works, then opening the indoor locker at day 400 would generate ski jacket with 85% condition minus the natural decay: Coeficient for Ski jacket is 0.067% condition drop per day (on Stalker as baseline). To calculate it:
85 - (0.067 x 400) x c = 85 - 26,8 x c (where c is difficulty coeficient)
Stalker (c = 1) = 58,2 % condition when looted
Interloper (c = 2) = 31,4% condition when looted
Pilgrim (c = 0,25) = 78,3 % condition when looted
Voyageur (c = 0,8) = 63,56 % condition when looted

So, if we assume that Opinion A is how decay actually works, then the ski jacket would be looted at condition 85% regardless of difficulty. If we assume Opinion B is how decay actually works, then the Ski jacket actual condition when looted at day 400 depending on difficulty according to the math I wrote down.

To summ it up: 
If Opinion A is correct - best thing is to loot whole world as soon as possible, without touching containers to "preserve them" and loot them later on when in need of such items.
If Opinion B is correct - best thing is to loot whole world as soon as possible, especially items inside the containers to prevent them from disappearing.

Yup. Even though I mostly remember it by now, I still use it for reference sometimes, at least since 2017 . Just want to clarify - the values there are only for indoor vs outdoor, not relating to containers at all. But, there is (or at least there USED to be) a difference between indoor, indoor in container, outdoor, and outdoor in container in the amount of decay that happens for various items. For example, MRE food is best stored outdoors, but storing it outdoors in a container decreased the decay even more. Not sure if that is still the case or if it was removed - either way, it would not be a good idea anyways because once it was ruined within a container, it would dissapear, but outside the container it would stay.

Just to point it out again - careful, outdoor containers are still considered "OUTSIDE" in terms of decay.

A lot of extensive testing was done on this, and items will decay the same, based on the item. Aka two Simple Parkas will decay at same rate, but different rate than Ski jackets, if stored indoors. Problem here being is that "starting condition" might be as low as 18%, or as high as 99%, depending on the game settings and luck when generated. You can reference the decay coeficient on the Decay website you linked.

I know this is what people say all the time, but I have also seen evidence that goes outside of these conditions. But, that also can be because the decay behaviour has changed a lot over the past 7 years. I am currently running a small test that will confirm it in a single-statistic area. To confirm this, one would need to know the % condition of an item in a container before it was looted. I made a new Pilgrim, found a 42% condition windbreaker in Carter dam locker, right now I am aging that day to at least 14 days, which would result condition to drop for at least 1% on that windbreaker that is in a currently "untouched" container, because I reloaded it. Of course I first reloaded 2 more times to ensure condition was always 42%. Not enough to be statistically perfect, but a chance that it would be randomly 42% on two attempts is relatively small. Enough for this small test.

Will post to confirm condition change if it happens or not.

Its nice to see you around the forum again... Like me you remember how it USED to be... LOL

[Mroz4k]

1 hour ago, Cattleman said:

Its nice to see you around the forum again... Like me you remember how it USED to be... LOL

Hell yea!  But that can be problematic, as it can occasionally lead me into a false feeling of "knowledge" that can be occasionaly incorrect.

First bit of info from my test - I have sufficiently pushed the time in my game now. I am now currently at over 13 days survived, and even 14th day of journal. I am playing on Pilgrim.
Windbreaker information:  Decay coeficient when "stored inside": 0.333% per day decay (on Stalker)
Pilgrim decay coeficient: 0.25 (Compared to Stalker, items on Pilgrim decay at 25% speed, so that means 4 times slower decay than on Stalker)

This means, that on Stalker, it would take 3 days for stored Windbreaker to lose 1% of condition. (0.333 x 3 = 0,999 which can be rounded down to 1% because I will always check it with a few more hours worth of decay, anyway)
On Pilgrim, that means 12 days for condition to deteorate by 1%. Because of the small margin of error, I decided to wait 13 days.

Since there is a small margin of error, I waited 13 days. 

Condition of the looted Windbreaker is still 42%.
I reloaded to a point where the container is not looted, and pushed the game by at another day. Currently, world is at journal day 15, and when I woke up, I got mention that I survived 13 days and 17 hours. At this point, even with the small margin of error, windbreaker has to have dropped by 1% in condition, assuming the "game takes into account the time survived to calculate decay".

It did not.
Windbreaker is still at 42% condition upon looting it from the container.
I reloaded.
Later, I will keep pushing the game further and further into the future to test it a few more times, but as it stands, assuming that the coeficients and my math is correct, the windbreaker should have decayed by 1% condition by now in the unopened container, but it appears to still maintain its original condition of 42%.

What did this small test prove so far?
One of two things:
Hypothesis A: Information about coeficients on Decay on TLD wiki is incorrect. Given how much testing was done on that site to make them, I doubt this hypothesis is correct.
Hypothesis B: The claim "when looted, condition of decay is calculated based on the characters "day survived" or "world creation moment" is incorrect, and if there is decay that affects the unlooted items, it is governed by some other formula. I am more inclined to believe this hypothesis, because of the number of people over the years that have reported finding items (especially in newly added regions) in long-term games where there should be none.

Will do a bit more testing later with this world to see how long it will take for the condition on unlooted Windbreaker to drop, if at all.

Edited July 2, 2024 by Mroz4k

[Veskaida]

3 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

You suggested that it is best to "loot entire world as quickly as possible" (and, I assume, you also meant to imply that you would then store the items according to how to decrease the decay on them as best as possible). This would make perfect sense, assuming that decay happens on all items, regardless.

Yes. Looting more and faster yields more loot, yields higher Condition loot. I can't take credit for common knowledge: TLD's decay, item spawning and container mechanics objectively punish players who loot the gameworld slower and/or store Ruined-deleting items in of containers.

• All Clothes will Decay to 0% "Ruined" and be unusuable unless repaired
• Ruin-Deleting Items: most Food/Drink, some Medicine, Raw Hides, Raw Guts, Raw Leather, Matches and Flare Shells which Decay to 0% "Ruined" and be deleted if inside of a Container
• Lower Difficulties (e.g. Pilgrim) have higher loot spawns, lower "empty container chance" (even more loot), and lower Decay rate. Higher modes also have many one-off loot spawns, usually unique/powerful loot spawns disabled (e.g. Bearskin Coat in Ash Canyon). Objectively there is more loot on Pilgrim than Voyageur than Stalker than Interloper. Misery largely uses Interloper loot settings.
• Items have different condition values (e.g. a 100% condition Improvised Gloves has much less durability than 100% condition gauntlets) In general: Improvised > Rabbitskin < Cloth < Wolfskin < Leather < Bearskin/Moose
• Worn clothing this has separate decay values/mechanics (e.g. Blizzards, Struggles) than items in placed/in containers.
• Carcass Decay/Carcass Harvesting condition rates are also a separate mechanic.

All items in The Long Dark with Condition and Decay values are affected by Decay.

1. Static (~90%): items spawn with fixed condition at worldgen, affected by Decay over time (e.g. Crampons always spawn at world creation with 100% Condition, and then are reduced by Decay)
2. Dynamic (~10): aka "spawns with a condition range" when the container is opened. An RNG call is made when the container is opened, generating the item with a Condition Range, which is then affected by Decay. (e.g. Orange Soda inside of a Cabinet, when looted the game rolls between 18-100% Condition (I believe the maximum value may be above 100%, e.g. 150%, which is capped at 100% at generation (player opening the container). This helps to smooth the Decay curve for item availability, especially for very old worlds (to a limit) and for higher difficulties. This is how "100%" condition late game Sodas/etc can be found, e.g. on Day 500 of Interloper, and is easy to test with mods or old gameworlds by opening a container on one date and again on a later date e.g. 10,000 days and nothing can be found.

Based on this, it is objectively:

• Better to loot more of TLD's ruin-deleting items in the gameworld and faster. This yields more loot and prevents container deletion.
• Better to store ruin-able items outside of a container (Condition % is largely moot, since Level 5 Cooking exists and all (non-clothes) ruined items may still be used (the only exception being Darkwalker-specific Toxic Fog "ruined")
• Better to loot more of TLD's clothing in the gameworld and faster. Clothes you wish to use later should be looted and be stored indoors and repaired to prevent ruining.

3 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

There are two prevalent opinions about decay:
Opinion A: Only the items that are NOT in containers are generated when world starts, and start decaying.
Opinion B: All items are subjected to decay from start of the game.

I answered this in this thread: TLD's behavior is consistent but it has different mechanics for loot generation and decay.

User Opinion (and Developer Opinion, for that matter) is perceptual (e.g. this is how bugs exist), and can at best be at parity or less accurate than what is reflected in code.

 

3 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

without touching containers to "preserve them" and loot them later on when in need of such items.
 

I would discourage this on all patches and game modes, this is not how TLD operates. This will result in less loot, lower Condition loot, and more ruined clothes.

3 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

If Opinion B is correct - best thing is to loot whole world as soon as possible, especially items inside the containers to prevent them from disappearing.

Yes, this is the best practice for maximizing loot and wearable clothing. Items should also be stored outside of containers (indoors or outdoors doesn't matter (except for Clothes), largely because of Cooking Skill 5 allowing the eating of ruined (non-raw meat) foods without penalty.

3 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

the values there are only for indoor vs outdoor, not relating to containers at all..

Yes, because that is how Decay works. Containers do not affect Decay, indoors or outdoors does and it has been this way for at least 6 years. I would always discourage storing Ruin-deleting items in containers, regardless of location, Condition, game mode, or patch and encourage looting the entire world ASAP at least to remove items from containers so when they become ruined they cannot be deleted.

Here are examples of 4 screenshots showing the 4 hypothetical storage types. These "Venison (Raw)" steaks were all at 93% Condition when harvested and placed, and gametime was passed for 24 hours on Pilgrim sandbox v2.30 with the DLC in Coastal Highway:

• Indoors Quonset, inside container (Locker): 87%
• Indoors Quonset, outside container: 87%
• Outdoors, in container (Car Trunk): 92%
• Outdoors, outside container: 92%

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

I know this is what people say all the time, but I have also seen evidence that goes outside of these conditions.

What evidence?

~90% of items in containers are static, ~10% are dynamic. All items outside of containers are static. All are affected by Decay. This is easy to test by opening a container and reloading.

e.g dynamic Orange Soda inside this Cabinet in a Coastal House in Coastal Townsite, Coastal Highway on v2.30 Pilgrim sandbox

Spoiler

 

e.g static Maple Syrup inside this Cabinet in a Coastal House in Coastal Townsite, Coastal Highway on v2.30 Pilgrim sandbox

Spoiler

3 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

Will do a bit more testing later with this world to see how long it will take for the condition on unlooted Windbreaker to drop, if at all.

A more accurate way to see values is with modding tools; but yes gameplay testing helps confirm this.

Also, The Long Dark also does not display decimal values for most UIX. It rounds to the nearest integer. These values are changing, but your UI is only showing them rounded.

[Cold In July]

On 7/2/2024 at 6:36 PM, Mroz4k said:

To summ it up: 
If Opinion A is correct - best thing is to loot whole world as soon as possible, without touching containers to "preserve them" and loot them later on when in need of such items.
If Opinion B is correct - best thing is to loot whole world as soon as possible, especially items inside the containers to prevent them from disappearing.

I meant it spawns at moment you open container, however this is not mean it spawned with 100% condition. Its spawn with some certain condition level.
FYI, I missed body in helicopter at FA (day 511, stalker), looted it now and got energy bar with 70% condition level. Also found in helicopter gloves which were ruined I guess from time.

I suggest loot everything u see, without rush, because ruined food still can be eaten at level 5 cooking, just throw it near your camp base until you reach 5 level cooking.
But stash clothes inside structures. Accordingly wiki decaying inside containers which are outside structures (bodies also are "containers") decay rate same as like u drop item into snow, however if its food it will be selfdestruct in this case. Seems helicopters and cars are considered as "outside" which may contain containers, because items in houses, on the floor or in various lockers decay way slower.

P.S.: (for addon owners) if you have ruined roolbed you may "reincarnate" it by upgrade it into improved rollbed with 100% condition, instead salvage it.
same for cooking recipes, ruined food possible use for cooking stew and etc.
Also I saw sometimes cat tails respawn, tho its about 1-2 spawn cases for about 10+ preplaces cat tales, but seems its randomly choose few spawn points over some time over whole world. I noticed it across all regions.
Also single case of respawn accorn trees loot after TLD update was at TWM, so in fact I looted them twice. That was a surprise.

Edited July 3, 2024 by Cold In July

[Leeanda]

@Cold In July   if you're getting multiple spawns of acorns then please file a report with support..   

There are some other things that have that issue too,like coal and sticks..  definitely not intended .

[Veskaida]

11 hours ago, Cold In July said:

P.S.: (for addon owners) if you have ruined roolbed you may "reincarnate" it by upgrade it into improved rollbed with 100% condition, instead salvage it. same for cooking recipes, ruined food possible use for cooking stew and etc.

Yes! This is a good point: you can upgrade a ruined "Bedroll" into an "Improvised Down Bedroll", and it will even be 100% condition upon doing so.

It is also actually possible to "deploy" a bedroll you don't want, e.g. a crappy duplicate Bedroll and use it as a sleeping spot indefinitely (even if it becomes ruined). This can be quite dangerous, since Condition affects the Warmth bonus the bedroll gives, but otherwise it is fully functional! (this works for Down and Bearskin Bedrolls too!) Very handy for safe indoors areas which lack a bed, such as the Vacant Depot in Transfer Pass. be careful though: I don't believe 0.0% ruined Bedrolls can be re-deployed though. So if you have a packed one e.g. in your inventory, or non-rolled out on the ground, it isn't really useful except for harvesting or turning into a Down Bedroll.

11 hours ago, Cold In July said:

Also I saw sometimes cat tails respawn, tho its about 1-2 spawn cases for about 10+ preplaces cat tales, but seems its randomly choose few spawn points over some time over whole world. I noticed it across all regions.
Also single case of respawn accorn trees loot after TLD update was at TWM, so in fact I looted them twice. That was a surprise.

I don't think this is the case that these plants are "respawning", far as I'm aware no harvestables in TLD respawn (or ever have), though some can be found via Beachcombing (e.g. birch/maple saplings, cattails, cattail heads). What you're describing is likely either harvestables you missed previously but then was able to find later when exploring from a different direction, or a one-off bug caused by Hinterlands updating the game.

Edited July 4, 2024 by Veskaida

[Leeanda]

There have been a lot of people mentioning that cat tails have respawned ,late game..  I myself have had this on a couple of longer runs..

They didn't coincide with updates or fixes as far as I remember... 

[MrWolf]

5 hours ago, Leeanda said:

There have been a lot of people mentioning that cat tails have respawned ,late game..  I myself have had this on a couple of longer runs..

They didn't coincide with updates or fixes as far as I remember... 

I heard an interesting theory from a streamer (Kimiota) recently about this.  I think it was something like: Sometimes we find a group of five cattails, sometimes one.  When it's less than five, more can spawn in that spot in the future.  So when we've harvested one or two cattails, we might come back later on and find another one, but we won't find more if we've harvested a group of five.  Or something like that.

I don't know if that's accurate and I haven't ever thought to test it, but I've started leaving the heads behind whenever I harvest the cattails so I'll keep an eye out in the future for a harvestable cattail where there's already one or more heads on the ground.

 

[ThePancakeLady]

5 hours ago, Leeanda said:

There have been a lot of people mentioning that cat tails have respawned ,late game..  I myself have had this on a couple of longer runs..

They didn't coincide with updates or fixes as far as I remember... 

There was a bug quite some time ago that I remember people talking about (and exploiting while it existed) where harvesting cattails, taking only the stalk and leaving the cattail head behind would cause cattails to respawn (in places you left the cattail heads behind). I can't remember exactly when it was (it's hard to remember every single thing that's happened over the last 8 years...) and I think it only worked if you left the cattail head behind and didn't put it in inventory and drop it from inventory. Leave the area, come back later and the gameworld location resets, but the game becomes confused about the plant being harvested, since you didn't take the cattail head. 

Could be a resurrection of that bug- some old bugs come back with new updates.

[Leeanda]

12 minutes ago, ThePancakeLady said:

There was a bug quite some time ago that I remember people talking about (and exploiting while it existed) where harvesting cattails, taking only the stalk and leaving the cattail head behind would cause cattails to respawn (in places you left the cattail heads behind). I can't remember exactly when it was (it's hard to remember every single thing that's happened over the last 8 years...) and I think it only worked if you left the cattail head behind and didn't put it in inventory and drop it from inventory. Leave the area, come back later and the gameworld location resets, but the game becomes confused about the plant being harvested, since you didn't take the cattail head. 

Could be a resurrection of that bug- some old bugs come back with new updates.

I've not heard of that one,but I always take both head and stalk..  can't bear to see them all over the floor  ..

[Leeanda]

55 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

I heard an interesting theory from a streamer (Kimiota) recently about this.  I think it was something like: Sometimes we find a group of five cattails, sometimes one.  When it's less than five, more can spawn in that spot in the future.  So when we've harvested one or two cattails, we might come back later on and find another one, but we won't find more if we've harvested a group of five.  Or something like that.

I don't know if that's accurate and I haven't ever thought to test it, but I've started leaving the heads behind whenever I harvest the cattails so I'll keep an eye out in the future for a harvestable cattail where there's already one or more heads on the ground.

 

Interesting idea...  I still have plenty of cat tails around on my long run so I can test it..

[I_eat_only_wolf_meat]

I don't know what the consensus is on this (and I'm too lazy to read all the comments) but I found a pair of tactical gloves in the Sundered Pass region that was already ruined when I found them on the floor of the cabin.  It was on roughly day 700 of my interloper run.  Probably only one to two weeks of game time had elapsed between the introduction of the region and me finding the gloves.